Ain't Life Grand?

After 15 years of singleness, I am suddenly fraught with date. As you might imagine, I am a little apprehensive, though I am also excited and overjoyed. As a single man, I have developed a lifestyle based around my work as an Internet car salesman for a large Ford and Lincoln dealership and a musician working in a classic rock/blues band for over 20 years, along with side gigs in acoustic settings. I do pretty much what I want, when I want, within the confines of available time and funding.

My typical day is up at 6:30am, shower and walk the dog and slide into work at 8:15am only fifteen minutes late. Car salesman have leeway as we are essentially subcontractors. Work my leads and greet customers until lunch, hit the local pubs with my bud Dr. Love for lunch, and back on the sales lot until either 5pm or 7:30pm. Of course for that moronic asshole who can't find our dealership, and who leaves an hour for what is at least a two hour drive to get here, I am often here as late as 9 or 10pm closing a deal and delivering the moron-obile.

Once home, the dog gets walked 1.5 miles which is the absolute bomb to him. He lives to take his walk. On those days when he gets two of these, I am certain he would make me dinner, clean the house and wash my car, if he only had hands and more brains than it takes to chase a cat. He loves him some walking.

Following that, I get a 2.5 mile bike ride on my Trek at high speed. These two exercise habits are changing my life. I have lost 15-20 pounds, my joints work better, and my sugar levels are more controllable. I am working on increasing these habits in frequency and distance.

Following all of that whirlwind of activity, I generally have an hour or two to relax, faceplant on the computer, write song lyrics, practice guitar or trumpet, watch TV or do chores. It is up to you to discover which of these I do happily and which I do monthly.

Throw into this exciting mix a band rehearsal on Tuesday evenings for about 3-3.5 hours. Highlight of the week. Bond with the boys, drink a little beer, make cool loud noises and yak about all things rock and roll, blues and bad, all the while examining each others newest musical toys and plotting to get more. All musicians are ate up with more and better and older and cooler and expensive musical equipment. The purchase of a new Sennheiser microphone can elicit an hour or more discussion of the relative coolness and sound quality or a deep discussion of what favorite baddass famous guy uses one just like it.

And then, there are the gigs. At 58, a drummer needs approximately a day and a half to load his equipment in his truck, drive to the gig and set it up. Alright, I exaggerate a little. But seriously, if we have a gig at 8pm, I will often leave the house at 4pm to get there and take 1.5 to 2 hours to get set up, mics set and my drum mixer and monitor system ready so I can help our sound man set the main system up and have maybe 15-20 minutes before we play to relax and go over the set lists.

When we are done, It is at least an hour for me to pack and roll out. So for that 8-12 gig, I will spend as much as 9-10 hours start to finish. Daunting and daring, though I love it and have worked since I was 14 to be able to do exactly what I do, and I am pretty damned good at it.

Throughout the week, I also do all of our promotion work for the band, calling club owners for gigs, writing set lists, designing facebook and web site notices of our dates and downloading music and lyrics for new material. It is a lot of work to be a shiftless musician. But I love it.

So, what does all this have to do with dating? I think we both know the answer...I have built an elaborate hamster maze to keep me busy and avoid the broken hearts, the costly dinner bills, the dress up clothes and the time spent wooing any particular woman. I have turned chicken since my divorce. Well, technically since my divorce and ensuing engagement after divorce that blew up in my face and bitch slapped me into the realm of the woman less. I just didn't want to go there.

Couple all that with some health issues that made me feel less than available, and you have the basic idea. Over the last 10 years my teeth deteriorated significantly, some were broken, and many were just gone. It was a mess. Okay, now you have a good picture of my status in life: sleep, shower, eat, sell, play, practice, play, drink and start over. My blog pretty much reflects this if you walk through it over the last couple of years.

Now we move to this past Spring, when an exceptionally pretty woman who was my high school sweetheart and steady shows up on Facebook. After connecting there this past year, and playing the "hey, what up girl, I am absolutely NOT trying to snoop your Facebook pages after all these years and find out if you are still that fabulous girl with the red hair I couldn't take my eyes off in school and what are you doing now and are you still married and OMG let me tell you all the cool stuff I have been doing for the 35 years since we dated and hey, do you....blah, blah, blah," game. Yeah, right. I just played it low key because, well, I was a bachelor, right?

Now from this past spring, we move to this past fall, and the Prezident Contest gets underway with a partisan war that makes the Blitzkrieg seem like a Sunday picnic, and I am all in! I am ate up with the body politic, and as it turns out, so is my long lost steady. So now, we are passing facenotes back and forth on the Prez Contest just like in 11th grade English class because she is every bit the radical, blood spurting, tree hugging, right brain social conscious liberal that I am and we have a common cause! Right on, baby, Black Power, plug in, drop out and get high! And still, it is not about...the date.

Next up, I get a note that she will be in town to see her mom, and is my band playing anywhere, and hell yeah, Goddamn right we are! So now, there looms a face to face meeting. And one that she initaited. What does this purport? Is it just to show me her cool young lover and flash those blue/green eyes at me and run? And I now have to face the bachelor reality of the situation, and what am I hoping will happen. I decide it is best just to hope it will be swell to see this woman who I cared for greatly at the tender age of 16.

The gig comes, and she does not disappoint. She is absolutely lovely. She shows up during our second set, alone, and we spend every break together and time after the gig is over to laugh and catch up and wonder at the ridiculous possibility (unspoken, of course) that there is still something to fish out of the box of forgotten memories and dust off. I very hesitantly kiss her good night with broken teeth and watch her drive off into the night.

Now my life schedule and all the things I take for granted as a bachelor come into question. Aren't I free of living someone else's schedule? Don't I appreciate never having to check with anyone about what I might do with my free time? Do I clean the kitchen today or next week? But even I am beginning to sense a dramatic shift in my onliness. I just don't have a clue where this is going but I cannot stop thinking about her, and as Gamble Rogers used to say, "I am ate up with the dumbass," because I remain clueless to my true desires.

But here is where the momentum builds. A local dentist had worked up a plan to fix my teeth, and though it is expensive, I have the money available in my 401K, but I cannot get to it unless the work is already done, and the dentist wants to be paid, of course, before he does the work. So for months, I had just tabled the whole thing. But now, in the short span of 3 sets of The Joe Willy Band, and the vision of pretty eyes that haven't changed a bit in all these years, I am NOT letting this tank. I contact a family member the very day after we saw each other at our gig, and threaten them with terrible acts of sorricide (yeah, I got you, go look it up) and demand they provide the upfront money to fix my upfront teeth. And they say....wait for it....YES! now I am cooking.

Weeks later, I am sporting a new upper and lower partial that fixes my mouth and my smile. I am now fraught with kiss desire, and I have a clear idea of who I want to start with. You see, since the face to face, I have been unable to get this woman out of my mind. A simple evening of reliving some old times and a small kiss, and the damn wagon is now gaining speed and rolling down the mountainside without any help from me. I am quickly coming to the conclusion that it isn't just about having been celibate and possibly idiotic for all these years, I am finding feelings for her I did not anticipate feeling. Is that possible? Is it recommended? Is it juvenile...wait, I am a man, so it is by definition juvenile, but is it real?

So I clearly don't know what to do, and I do very little as a result. I send a few faint messages and facenotes, and get very little response. I can only imagine I was dreaming or delusional, or there was LSD in my morning coffee and I am in fact an idiot. But friends, my saga does not end here. There is more to this story.

Weeks after our encounter and my mewling inaction, with new teeth in mouth and balls in hand, I send a note. A real note. A note a man would send, if he had someone with a gun to his head: "Can't imagine anyone as attractive as you doesn't have anyone in your life, but if you do not, I want to take you to dinner. Of course if there is someone, I will understand and only be pissed, or heartbroken, or pissed and heartbroken. Just kidding. Yours truly, me." Now I have done it. I have actually asked her out for a, no...no...I can't say it.....A DATE! WTF do I do now?

I get one line back..."No need to be pissed, I would love to go." And with this, I have learned what every man should be taught from an early age and have written on his bathroom mirror so he can see it each morning when he shaves — "just ask her, stupid."

The details of the date are mine and mine alone, along with my date, but I will tell you this; that movie every Christmas, "it's a Wonderful Life" has nothing on me. Jam up and jelly tight, she is a fabulous woman, gorgeous in every way and we are going out again. And if that pretty girl reads this, she must know that regardless of what happens, she has changed my life for the better. Forever. Ain't life grand?